Workshop: Socio-legal Studies and Disaster: Cross-National and Cross-Disciplinary Conversations

University Of Denver, Denver CO

Investigators

Abstract

This workshop will bring together a cross-disciplinary and cross-national set of scholars from two currently separate fields of study -- socio-legal studies and disaster studies -- to develop a new more sophisticated research agenda in the near future that draws from the intersections of these two areas of study. Scholars at the workshop will work to develop the basis for new intellectual directions in the impact of natural and man-made disasters on the attribution of risk and blame; the application of existing rules; the introduction of new norms and rules; the development of new governmental institutions; and the re-constitution of the social understanding of identity, responsibility, rights and the role of law. Consistent with the goal of expanding international collaboration in these fields, the site for the proposed workshop is the Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Onati, Spain. The workshop will foster exchange and collaboration among a range of international scholars from a variety of disciplines. It also has the potential to initiate a new and potentially transformative line of research in currently disparate areas of research.